How did a girl from a Communist “red family” start to question the ideology she’d believed since she was a kid?
How did a spoiled single child rebel against her parents by destroying the piano she was forced to play with a screwdriver?
How did a Chinese student wake up at 12:00am every day for six months to prepare for the Gaokao (Chinese college entrance exam) that she almost failed?
How did a girl from a conservative Chinese family — where sex is a taboo topic of conversation — learn most of her English from Sex and the City?
Fascinated by these questions? These stories belong to Jingjing and Yajun, and you will hear all about it on our show today!
For this episode, we will spend a bit of time introducing ourselves. Before we get to the show, here are the top four things you should know about us going in:
- Yajun and Jingjing are not related, even though they have the same surname, Zhang (张 — it’s one of the most common surnames in the world)
- They were born in ’80s, and are both only children
- They were forced to learn an instrument (or a hobby) when they were young
- They both love to laugh (as you have probably noticed on the show…)
In this episode, Yajun and Jingjing share some of their personal stories growing up as only children, including their most traumatic experiences as students, their ideology clashes, and who was the most important influencer to form their values about life and relationships.
Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here.
Have thoughts or feedback to share? Want to join the discussion? Write to Yajun and Jingjing at [email protected].
Soundcloud embed (if you’re in China, turn your VPN on):
